Monday, 23 April 2012

Twitter is a wonderful thing isn't it!? Without it I very much doubt I would've ever been contacted by my new friends Berry Temptation who dropped me a message last week introducing themselves. Berry Temptation are a small UK based company formed by two friends with a shared passion and drive to create 'the perfect gift to your loved ones for every occasion'. As you may have gathered, these guys believe such a gift comes in the form of chocolate dipped fruits - strawberries to be exact. After exchanging initial pleasantries across the Twitterverse, Berry Temptation offered me the chance of reviewing their Classic Temptation offering. With the summer sun well on the way I couldn't help but say yes - this was to be the first time that JCM would feature a fresh fruit chocolatey offering.

As you can see above and below I was sent a pack containing nine dipped strawberry pieces. The fruits came beautifully presented in a black, ribbon tied box with the Berry Temptation branding embossed in a classy looking shiney silver font. Suffice to say I wasn't expecting such a well presented product from such a small company. This is normally where there are cost savings to be had and previous reviews I'v done for products for similar sized entities have often reflected this. The presentation in this instance however gets a real thumbs up. The strawberries were equally as impressive looking as the exterior packaging and I felt so confident in them I took them to a dinner party on the night I received them.

I'm glad to report my confidence was not misled - these went down tremendously and served up a real treat after what was a very rich meal. Indeed after our main course these were placed at the centre of the table for all to enjoy. After many a marveling 'oooh' and 'ahhh' at the (and I quote) "gorgeous" and "cute" looking fruits in front of them, my fellow dinner guests and I went about sampling. The box contained a variety of dark, milk and white chocolate strawberries, some plain, some with added bits of coconut and hazelnut. Myself I managed to try one dark chocolate with hazelnuts and one white chocolate with coconut. Both were delicious, but the dark chocolate with hazelnuts was my favourite as I loved the way the semi-sweet cocoa chocolate balanced the sugary sweetness of the ripe, juicey sugary strawberry. Among my fellow diners, it was the white chocolate ones that seemed to really hit the mark, with the common theme of enjoyment being the appropriateness of the creaminess the outer coating brought to the red berry fruits. There wasn't a single person who didn't like these and it wont come as a surprise for you to hear the box was emptied within minutes.

Overall it's always a relief when these samples from smaller companies come good and I can confidently credit Berry Temptation with a JCM thumbs up. I wouldn't ever suggest they are appropriate as an everyday option, but as a proposition I think they are perfect for such occasions like a dinner party like I spoke of above. As a total package I was surprised at the all round quality for a product from such a small company. Like I said above it must be very tempting to cut corners to drive margins when you are a new company like Berry Temptation, but I couldn't see any evidence of this here at all. I of course was not the only one to enjoy these and the dinner party guests I shared them with were similarly forthcoming in their praise of this Classic Temptation Collection. All of them left wishing I had brought a larger box and I was told by more than one of them that they would be looking up Berry Temptation very soon. I think it goes without saying these get a JCM recommendation - look them up on Twitter @BerryTemptation or www.berrytemptation.co.uk